And I'm going to take first honors with feedback. Gordon, you outdid yourself with DM2010. That you got it all to boot in the first place is a small miracle. Congratulations on building the most powerful rig in Maximum PC Magazine history.

I would really appreciate it if one of the gang can actually take a photograph of DM2010 in action, with all three 30" monitors in the photograph (wide-angle time).

And by the way, on behalf of the Folding at Home team, we'd love to see this thing maxed out running folding at home for a week. That would be a Maximum PC Challenge!

â€Ž8 years ago I was taking night school for my A+ Certification. I can still recall drooling over the 2002 Dream Machine article while the teacher droned on about the difference of Amps & Watts. Now I'm looking at the 2010 DM with my own company, Mnpctech.com. It just shows how much thought and pre-planning goes into the components of each DM build. and Why I'm flattered the guys chose my product for DM2010!

Further proof that the whole "Well, we're in a deep recession, and we wanted to make a Dream Machine that was realistic in this day and age" line they foisted last year was just a load of crap to excuse a lazy, tired, half-assed effort, as most of us knew it was. At least this year's DM isn't something Gateway could put to shame.

Further proof that the whole "Well, we're in a deep recession, and we wanted to make a Dream Machine that was realistic in this day and age" line they foisted last year was just a load of crap to excuse a lazy, tired, half-assed effort, as most of us knew it was. At least this year's DM isn't something Gateway could put to shame.

I hate to be the one to rain on your parade but you guys really dopped the ball on the Dream Machine this year. With the exception of the pump I don't have a complaint about the choice of parts, however, it is the way you have configured them that is just wrong. Why is it that the group of components that are going to be generating the most heat, the GPU cluster, have only the double radiator on their output when the first Xeon processor in the loop outputs to a triple radiator? Who thought that was a good idea?

I pretty much use Danger Den parts exclusively and with apologies to Jeremy Burnett, from my personal experience I believe he is wrong when he says that you don't need separate cooling loops. I would've expected him to be correct, however, previous experience, even with more than enough cooling, proved him wrong.

The biggest problem I see with your configuration though is the GPU cluster itself. Having already done that configuration with only two 8800 Ultras on my previous machine I found that over the long term the second (or third) card in the serial chain never actually gets cool water to it. It is always subjected to the hot output of the first card before it even begins to try and transfer its heat to the water. And because the water is already at a higher temperaturethe second card doesn't get a chance to transfer as much heat away from itself and so it just sits there and cooks. Over the long term that will kill the second, and in your case, the third card. I used/use laing D5 pumps with 1/2 in IDA tubing so I'm moving plenty of fluid there just wasn't enough temperature differential left when the water reached the second card for it to take away as much heat as was removed from the first card.

You should use a splitter to divide the the input to all of the cards so they all start out with the same input temperature and yes I know that the pressure will be reduced but with 1/2 inch IDA tubing and either a D5 pump or an additional pump in the line just prior to the splitter that won't be an issue. The problem is you guys build the thing and then it just sits there looking all shiny so you never do long term testing and see how your creations last. I am willing to bet money that if you were to use this monstor you have created as a heavy-duty gaming machine for the next year until the new Dream Machine is built you will find that one or more of those graphics card will fail because of that configuration.

I currently have a water-cooled Skeleton case using two separate cooling loops and a splitter on the inputs and outputs of my BFG 280 GTXs in SLI and the temperatures are brilliant. What you put together and the way you put it together might look great on paper but in actuality you have caused yourself some serious problems long-term.

I pretty much use Danger Den parts exclusively and with apologies to Jeremy Burnett, from my personal experience I believe he is wrong when he says that you don't need separate cooling loops. I would've expected him to be correct, however, previous experience, even with more than enough cooling, proved him wrong.

Basic science, though, proves him correct.

Calories in and calories out. That is all that a water loop is .. and so long as your loop can shed more calories than it picks up, it is doing its job.

Consider two loops, A and B.

On A, you have X calories produced by the components it cools. On B, you have Y calories produced by the components that it cools. If A is capable of shedding up to X calories, your components won't overheat. If B is capable of shedding up to Y calories, it won't overheat.

If A and B are linked into a single loop, then the number of calories the new loop, C, can shed is equal to the sum of the calories shed by A and B. The number of calories created by the components in A and B is X+Y. If A and B were capable of shedding X and Y, respectively, the C is capable of shedding X+Y.

Summary: basic science tells us that if A and B can do their jobs, C can do it just as well. There is no advantage to multiple loops.

The advantages to a single loop are manifold. First is simplicity. A simple loop is easy to clean, repair and maintain. Second, if you want to add a component, it is much easier to add it to a single large loop. Not only is the loop simpler, but the extra calorie potential from A and B are both present in C. If A can handle 100 more calories than it produces and B can handle 150, then C has 250 calories of additional potential available. Adding a 175 calorie component is easy.

Quote:

The biggest problem I see with your configuration though is the GPU cluster itself. Having already done that configuration with only two 8800 Ultras on my previous machine I found that over the long term the second (or third) card in the serial chain never actually gets cool water to it. It is always subjected to the hot output of the first card before it even begins to try and transfer its heat to the water. And because the water is already at a higher temperaturethe second card doesn't get a chance to transfer as much heat away from itself and so it just sits there and cooks. Over the long term that will kill the second, and in your case, the third card. I used/use laing D5 pumps with 1/2 in IDA tubing so I'm moving plenty of fluid there just wasn't enough temperature differential left when the water reached the second card for it to take away as much heat as was removed from the first card.

That is a function of your loop design and it would easily be solved with multiple rads in a single loop. You need to put a cooling solution between the heat sources.

Quote:

You should use a splitter to divide the the input to all of the cards so they all start out with the same input temperature and yes I know that the pressure will be reduced but with 1/2 inch IDA tubing and either a D5 pump or an additional pump in the line just prior to the splitter that won't be an issue. The problem is you guys build the thing and then it just sits there looking all shiny so you never do long term testing and see how your creations last. I am willing to bet money that if you were to use this monstor you have created as a heavy-duty gaming machine for the next year until the new Dream Machine is built you will find that one or more of those graphics card will fail because of that configuration.

Your solution might work but it is inelegant. Much better to add cooling between heat sources.

I found this issue as the last many (I miss that days of boot, thats how long I have subscribed) to be boring. I am letting my subscription expire after all these years. There's just nothing new. It's all old as with most printed mags these days. Months behind.

I hate to be the one to rain on your parade but you guys really dopped the ball on the Dream Machine this year. With the exception of the pump I don't have a complaint about the choice of parts, however, it is the way you have configured them that is just wrong. Why is it that the group of components that are going to be generating the most heat, the GPU cluster, have only the double radiator on their output when the first Xeon processor in the loop outputs to a triple radiator? Who thought that was a good idea?

Well in their defense the Grphics card will only generate a lot of heat when they are being run to extremes. Which means primarily when running games. But the Procs can go to high heat mode at just about anytime not just on graphic intensive applications! Video Encoding that doesn't go through the GPUs comes to mind.

So you really need to do what you can to make sure your proccessor loop is shedding as much heat as possible. Personally I think Tri-SLI is overkill for any rig but then again thats the point of a dream machine no?

Ok onto the comment I came here to make. lolThe comment I wanted to make was regarding the story on 3DTV. I would not run out and pay for such technology just yet. I am in broadcasting and I can tell you the issues of producing 3D content is still rather daunting. And paying $1000 more for a feature that has very little content to take advantage of it is simply foolish!

People are fooled into thinking Avatar changed the landscape of 3D but they forget. Everything you see in Avatar is computer generated with the exception of the few live action scenes. It looks good because the Camera was virtual as was everything in the scene. This makes it easy to adjust lens properties for camera tracking in the same way your eyes do when you track an object that is coming closer to you.

The only other properties that seem to be interested in 3DTV is sporting. But there are numerous issues most notably tracking the ball and large and long depth of fields. The technology simply is too young for good 3D (and by good I mean the kind that won't make you sea sick or give you migranes) to be done effectively.

It might be a good option for computers and gamers as that content is also virtual and much more controlable thanks to the great GPUs we have that can do such things with a little bit of programming.

The monitor companies all are trying to play it as the next big thing, both for their investors sake and as the guy in the movie Congo used to say "I need a new cash cow!"

Problem is many people already spent money on big screen HD panels and they are not going to go buy yet another just to see Avatar in all it's glory especially if thats all there is!

Can we get a detailed build list for the Dream machine? For example the water cooling build out was more than just one part? What about the screen I see built into the case? The case would have a few details to it as well. Side question why tri-sli instead of quad-sli?

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